Because advertisers are in the business of lying. The measure of success in advertising is the persuasiveness of one's lies.
Those two sentences sum it up for me. I've taught my children to be wary of all ads because advertising is all lies, or at the very best, as close to lying as someone can get and still not tell an untruth.
As far as the cabbie and the ad executive above, how does the ad executive know that the cabbie was either (a) telling the truth or (b) influenced by ads? Perhaps the cabbie tried a lot of toothpastes before settling on Crest.
Secondarily, advertising seems to influence content overly much, no matter how much the content people protest. Stories get spiked because advertisers squawk, reporters get fired or hog-tied because advertisers squawk, products of advertisers get better reviews. And don't tell me that doesn't happen, it does.
That's not at all effective - David Ogilvy is an ad agency executive, in the business of lying, or so I (and others) believe.
Even if we believe that advertising is not all about lyig, the PDF is all about how to get and keep clients. It's a pitch to other ad agencies, Ogilvy's competitors. Why shouldn't Ogilvy pitch a little disinformation their way, might keep the wolves from the door a day or two longe, eh wot? The "perfidious Albion" stereotype would seem to apply here. Caveat Emptor would seem to apply in large quantities.
> again, that's a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of advertising.
Nice article, but it confuses advertising's role with advertising's practice. You know the old saying "the first casualty of battle is the battle plan"? It works the same in advertising -- the most well-intentioned people become mesmerized by the bottom line, and principles go out the window.
Those two sentences sum it up for me. I've taught my children to be wary of all ads because advertising is all lies, or at the very best, as close to lying as someone can get and still not tell an untruth.
As far as the cabbie and the ad executive above, how does the ad executive know that the cabbie was either (a) telling the truth or (b) influenced by ads? Perhaps the cabbie tried a lot of toothpastes before settling on Crest.
Secondarily, advertising seems to influence content overly much, no matter how much the content people protest. Stories get spiked because advertisers squawk, reporters get fired or hog-tied because advertisers squawk, products of advertisers get better reviews. And don't tell me that doesn't happen, it does.